Question:
Can a child sue a parent for damage resulting from neglect ?
Answer:
Yes! In October 1999 the Supreme Court upheld a district court judgment that a child who has been totally neglected by a parent and accordingly suffers severe emotional damage, is entitled to financial compensation from him/her .
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the father against a judgment made by Tel Aviv district court ordering him to pay financial compensation to his three children – whom he openly disowned when he remarried after his first wife committed suicide.
Separated from one another, the three children went back and forth from foster home to institution until they became adults with personality disorders, the court held. Each entered a tragic, downward spiral related to emotional rejection, drugs and crime, and severe trauma.
Calling the case ‘tragic’ and ‘extreme’, the Supreme Court held that the father had failed to carry out his obligation as the children’s natural guardian to look after their needs under The Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law of 1962. Although the children were not in his physical care he still had duties under the act. Furthermore, the Supreme Court held that the father had failed to exercise a duty of care towards his children according to the Civil Wrongs Ordinance. As a result of his negligent behaviour, they suffered severe emotional damage – and accordingly he should compensate them financially.
‘It is hard for a child to grow up without parental support. And with their post traumatic background relating to their past, it is not clear whether they could develop even today. It is clear that with all three of them their developmental delay and post traumatic difficulties are connected with their past…’, the court held.
The father’s use of the ‘slippery slope ‘ argument was rejected by the court. He claimed that if a parent was legally liable for a child’s emotional damage , there would be a flood of claims for compensation. The court rejected this, saying that only in extreme cases would children be liable for compensation.